A New Recipe

I've come up with a new recipe, I thought I'd share. For two reasons 1. because I like to share and 2. I have no idea what to call it.

You will need:

Spices and herbs
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp paprika
about 5 or 6 cardamom pods crushed in a mortar & pestle
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped.

4 chicken breasts, skinned and diced
small bag of dried apricots
1 tin of cider
1 tin of green lentils
1 tin of chickpeas
1 red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped.

In a large sauce pan, heat some oil. I cook with extra-virgin olive oil out of preference. Proper foodies will say with this kind of cooking it makes no-nevermind as the flavour gets cooked out. But it's the only oil I have in the house.

When the oil is hot dump the onion and pepper in. Fry for a few minutes until it's a bit soft and then add all the spices except the fresh corriander. Fry and breathe deep for a couple of minutes. It's smells divine. It really does. Add the chicken. When the chicken is all nice and brown, throw in the tins of lentils and chickpeas. Stir well. Add the cider a bit at a time until chicken is all covered and bubbling nicely, turn the heat down to simmer. Add the apricots and fresh coriander. Cover the pot and occasionally stir.

With dishes like this, I have no idea how long they take to cook. I think it takes about an hour. About 15 mins before you'd like to eat, put some rice on. Take the lid off the pan of chicken. You'll need to stir regularly. The idea is to get the liquid to evaporate, to thicken up the sauce a bit. When you're happy with the consistency and the rice is ready, remove from heat and serve.

Enjoy!

There is no reason why you could throw other things into the pot. Mushrooms, the odd potato would work too. If you like a bit of heat, add dried or fresh chillis when you fry the onion and pepper. If you, like me, adore cream, just before you're ready to serve, take the pot off the heat and add some double cream or creme fraiche or sour cream. Return to heat, but make sure it doesn't come up to the boil. Simmer is the trick here.

If you are moved enough to cook this, please let me know how you get on.

So finally, what do I call this dish? Gee's husband tends to think anything with apricots, automatically becomes Moroccan. I think a Moroccan might take exception to this. This dish smells and tastes fantastic, so I've just been calling it Fragrant Chicken, but that's not terribly exciting.

Oh yeah, these quanities fed 3 adults and two teenage boys. I'm sure it would be great for left-overs, except there are very few left-overs in this house these days.